Talk about video games, movies, music, news, and technology without wading through a thousand dumb kids and dozen exclamation points after each sentence. Try it out for a few days and remember what it's like to breathe Internet air without getting two lungs full of stupid.

Network Neutrality

You like the internet, right? You like going to websites and having them load up quick so you can spank off to that furry porn with the quickness, yes? Well, imagine an internet where all your favorite websites (TNL included) were slowed down while websites you've never been too (Disney.com, ExxonMobile.com, etc.) were fast as fuck.

Don't care? Okay, asshole, what if all your favorite P2P sites were slowed down to the point that you'd think you were back in the Napsters days on your aunt's 28.8k connection?

All that and more are in store for us if the government is allowed to steamroll legislation supported by powerful cable & telephone lobbies. The following article lays it all out pretty well, I'll quote some key parts and then link it at the bottom.

Originally Posted by The Nation

The nation's largest telephone and cable companies are crafting an alarming set of strategies that would transform the free, open and nondiscriminatory Internet of today to a privately run and branded service that would charge a fee for virtually everything we do online.

Verizon, Comcast, Bell South and other communications giants are developing strategies that would track and store information on our every move in cyberspace in a vast data-collection and marketing system, the scope of which could rival the National Security Agency. According to white papers now being circulated in the cable, telephone and telecommunications industries, those with the deepest pockets--corporations, special-interest groups and major advertisers--would get preferred treatment. Content from these providers would have first priority on our computer and television screens, while information seen as undesirable, such as peer-to-peer communications, could be relegated to a slow lane or simply shut out.

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To make this pay-to-play vision a reality, phone and cable lobbyists are now engaged in a political campaign to further weaken the nation's communications policy laws. They want the federal government to permit them to operate Internet and other digital communications services as private networks, free of policy safeguards or governmental oversight. Indeed, both the Congress and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are considering proposals that will have far-reaching impact on the Internet's future. Ten years after passage of the ill-advised Telecommunications Act of 1996, telephone and cable companies are using the same political snake oil to convince compromised or clueless lawmakers to subvert the Internet into a turbo-charged digital retail machine.

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At the core of the new power held by phone and cable companies are tools delivering what is known as "deep packet inspection." With these tools, AT&T and others can readily know the packets of information you are receiving online--from e-mail, to websites, to sharing of music, video and software downloads.

These "deep packet inspection" technologies are partly designed to make sure that the Internet pipeline doesn't become so congested it chokes off the delivery of timely communications. Such products have already been sold to universities and large businesses that want to more economically manage their Internet services. They are also being used to limit some peer-to-peer downloading, especially for music.

But these tools are also being promoted as ways that companies, such as Comcast and Bell South, can simply grab greater control over the Internet. For example, in a series of recent white papers, Internet technology giant Cisco urges these companies to "meter individual subscriber usage by application," as individuals' online travels are "tracked" and "integrated with billing systems." Such tracking and billing is made possible because they will know "the identity and profile of the individual subscriber," "what the subscriber is doing" and "where the subscriber resides."

Will Google, Amazon and the other companies successfully fight the plans of the Bells and cable companies? Ultimately, they are likely to cut a deal because they, too, are interested in monetizing our online activities. After all, as Cisco notes, content companies and network providers will need to "cooperate with each other to leverage their value proposition." They will be drawn by the ability of cable and phone companies to track "content usage...by subscriber," and where their online services can be "protected from piracy, metered, and appropriately valued."

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The future of the online media in the United States will ultimately depend on whether the Bells and cable companies are allowed to determine the country's "digital destiny." So before there are any policy decisions, a national debate should begin about how the Internet should serve the public. We must insure that phone and cable companies operate their Internet services in the public interest--as stewards for a vital medium for free expression.

If Americans are to succeed in designing an equitable digital destiny for themselves, they must mount an intensive opposition similar to the successful challenges to the FCC's media ownership rules in 2003. Without such a public outcry to rein in the GOP's corporate-driven agenda, it is likely that even many of the Democrats who rallied against further consolidation will be "tamed" by the well-funded lobbying campaigns of the powerful phone and cable industry.

I know most of you could give a fuck about politics, but this is finally something that is attacking what you love; the internets. So, for once, whattya say about writing your elected reps and telling them to 'fuck off' when in regards to making the internet similiar to seating on an airplane with all the big corporate interests in First Class and TNL in Coach?

Yeah, I hope they implement all this bullshit and then charge me some sort of "administrative monitoring fees" on top of the already bloated monthly rate for the restricted web access that they (sometimes) provide me.

At the core of the new power held by phone and cable companies are tools delivering what is known as "deep packet inspection." With these tools, AT&T and others can readily know the packets of information you are receiving online--from e-mail, to websites, to sharing of music, video and software downloads.

These "deep packet inspection" technologies are partly designed to make sure that the Internet pipeline doesn't become so congested it chokes off the delivery of timely communications. Such products have already been sold to universities and large businesses that want to more economically manage their Internet services. They are also being used to limit some peer-to-peer downloading, especially for music.

See, this is the part that makes me worry a lot less. This technology is nothing new, and I highly doubt will ever be used to prioritize public internet traffic. Especially considering that would be some sort of invasion of privacy. It's one thing if you are on a Universities private network where you sign a contract that allows them to regulate and monitor your traffic, it's a completely different situation if you are on an ISP's public network where you didn't.

Also note this information is coming from white papers circulating throughout cable companies. White papers are never one sided

Last edited by BrAnDX105; 17 Apr 2006 at 11:47 AM.

Originally Posted by BerringerX

I am pretty sure one of the reasons Jesus died is so we could enjoy delicious chicken and waffle fries seven days a week.

Another thing I just thought of: remember that controversey a few months ago about "the UN takign control of the internet"? The one that Malkin and Roger L. Simon and the like guffawed at? Wouldnt that have deep-sixed this BS? Discuss.

"Without such a public outcry to rein in the GOP's corporate-driven agenda, it is likely that even many of the Democrats who rallied against further consolidation will be "tamed" by the well-funded lobbying campaigns of the powerful phone and cable industry."
Yay, indeed!

Another thing I just thought of: remember that controversey a few months ago about "the UN takign control of the internet"? The one that Malkin and Roger L. Simon and the like guffawed at? Wouldnt that have deep-sixed this BS? Discuss.

I think that was mostly the international community not really liking that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) which sets technical standards is controlled by the Commerce Dept here in the US. They (the UN) would like to see it internationalized, something the very nationalistic Bush administration isn't keen on.

Their defense is that they've had a 'hands off' approach to ICANN and so it can remain impartial, but there is evidence contrary to that. However, IF that'd gone through with it and made it part of the UN then the telecom lobbies would have had a much harder time trying to push through this sort of thing in Geneva than they do in D.C.